Saturday, April 9, 2011

Just for fun!

Hi all,

In preparation for the 2011 ACDA National Conference I wrote a fun and slightly goofy blog as a lure for people to get over their hesitation and come to Chicago. Part of my motivation to get to work on this was also the fact that people were starting to talk about coming to "Chi-town" - this sparked me into action, as this "Chi-town" appellation might be something you might hear on a bad TV series but not a name for the city that someone in Chicago would ever utter.

Google Analytics tells me this blog about Chicago was read by a whole lot of people, which is cool. But what is funny to me is that nobody challenged the rather ludicrous item I tossed in there (yes, I was amusing myself by messing with you), just to see if anyone was really playing attention on a critical level. Here's the text:

"If you go east, I would suggest swim trunks and a snorkel. However, if you stop short of falling into the chilly waters of Lake Michigan, you will find a great running and bike trail right near the lake which stretches many miles- also safe day and night. Just be careful crossing Lake Shore Drive to get there. By the way, if you head east straight over from Symphony Center, before you hit LSD (that's Lake Shore Drive, not a drug) you will come across Buckingham Fountain, a really cool large fountain which will probably not be turned on yet (sorry, come back in May or June!). It was a gift to the city from Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks back when they were flush with large amounts of Franklins."

Did you catch it now? The ridiculous statement about Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks was a plant of false info- like I said, just my devilish, late night at the keyboard way of messing with y'all.

Here is the real background re: Chicago's Buckingham Fountain. And I quote Wikipedia, the ultimate source of truth in our world in 2011;

The fountain is considered to be Chicago's front door, since it resides in Grant Park, the city's front yard. It is located near Columbus Drive and Congress Parkway. The fountain itself represents Lake Michigan, with each sea horse symbolizing the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, which border the lake. The fountain was designed by beaux arts architect Edward H. Bennett. The statues were created by the French sculptor Marcel F. Loyau. The design of the fountain was inspired by the Bassin de Latome and modeled after Latona Fountain at Versailles.

The fountain was donated to the city by Kate Buckingham in memory of her brother, Clarence Buckingham and was constructed at a cost of $750,000. The fountain official name is the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain. Kate Buckingham also established the Buckingham Fountain Endowment Fund with an initial investment of $300,000 to pay for maintenance of the fountain.[1] Buckingham Fountain was dedicated on August 26, 1927.